


The Manitoba

by adafrog



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:44:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adafrog/pseuds/adafrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: The Manitoba<br/>Pairing: a bit John/Rodney (McShep)<br/>Rating: PGish<br/>Warnings: Dangerously close to crack!fic.<br/>Summary: Well, this is my B-movie ficathon fic. The prompt was as follows: “The Manitou: A psychic's girlfriend finds out that a lump on her back is a growing reincarnation of a 400 year-old demonic Native American spirit.”<br/>All I can say is that I’ve taken many liberties with it. <br/>Yes, the name is stupid, but I figured, if I was gonna write about Rodney, it kinda fit. In a way. Sorta. <br/>(written in 2006)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Manitoba

“Well it was your fault for turning the stupid thing on!” Rodney yelled as they came through the Stargate. 

“How was I to know that picture would turn it on? All I did was…”

“Okay, Mr. I Am So Cool Ancient Technology Loves Me, what did you think…”

“Gentlemen!” Dr. Weir interrupted their argument, which had obviously been going on since before they left P3G-992. She briefly looked to Ronon and Teyla, who had identical frustrated expressions, then turned back to the apparently guilty parties.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this little display to this time, Colonel,” glaring at John, “Doctor,” glaring at Rodney. 

They had the good grace to look chagrined for the briefest of seconds, and then both started talking at once.

“He put his head…”  
“…not a clue…”  
“I am not a prima donna…”  
“…and then this thing, and I…”  
“…couldn’t stop it, so we pulled, hoping his head…”  
“and I thought they were going to pop my head off...”  
“…thought he was okay until we saw he was Quasimodo…”  
“…that is so not right, but it does kinda…”

“Stop.” Elizabeth took a calming breath. “One person,” she pointed at John, “what happened?”

And, instead of explaining it, John spun Rodney to the side so she could see for herself. “Look.”

“Okaaay,” She took a lot more calming breaths, opened and closed her mouth a few times, took another calming breath, then pointed out the door. “Go.” She’d never before been so happy that they’d followed her orders the first time. 

Finally able to shift her attention, she turned to Ronon and Teyla. “What happened?”

“We do not know. We had determined the building to be of Ancient origin, and it did not seem harmful on initial inspection.” She frowned, “Ronon and I had gone back outside to videotape the markings for Dr. McKay when we heard him yelling.”

Ronon smirked, “he screamed like a girl.” Then looked unrepentant when both women glared at him.

“We ran to help, and saw that Dr. McKay had developed quite a…”

 

“Quite a mass you’ve got there, Rodney,” Carson observed, helping Rodney take off his shirt. 

“Yesyesyes, just, figure out how to get it off.” Rodney squirmed around, trying to see for himself. 

Carson grabbed his shoulders, “hold still Rodney, I can’t look at it with you doing that.” Getting John’s attention, he nodded at the bed. 

“It’ll be okay, Rodney,” John soothed, hopping up next to him, and slinging an arm around his shoulders. 

“You don’t know that. I just want it off. It’s probably sucking out my intelligence right now, and then we’re all gonna be in big trouble because I won’t know how to save all you idiots anymore.” 

“Now I can’t take it off until I know what it is, Rodney.”

“What?!” Rodney screeched, panicking more. Only slightly calming down when John pulled him closer and started murmured soothing sounds.

“I don’t want to hurt you any more. We can start with an ultrasound; see what we can find out. Ok?” Sending a nurse out for the machine, he focused on John. “Now, it would help greatly to know what happened.”

“HE,” pointing to John, “turned on this horrible, evil, tumor growing machine, giving me-ME-a tumor, and now I’m gonna be stuck looking like Quasimodo-that’s if I live, and I’m really never gonna get…”

“Rodney,” John squeezed him harder, “Carson meant that I should explain. Isn’t that right, Carson.”

“Yes, quite.” He nodded at John. “Colonel, please continue.”

“One of the rooms appeared to be a lab of some sort; at least it had the basic set up of most of the labs here in Atlantis. But it was…a bit weird.” He paused, looking a bit confused. 

“Weird…” Carson prompted.

“Well, there were several…things…scattered around the tables and floor that looked like…well…mummified animals.”

“Excuse me? Animals that were mummified?”

“Not Egyptian walking-mummy mummified, but definitely preserved. Little things, most of them about the size of a small dog…”

“Dogs? Cats? I really really like cats. They like me. They’re the only ones…Oh My GOD, maybe it was some nefarious Ancient, and he was ostracized, and the rest of the Ancients sent him to this horrific place because they didn’t believe in the death penalty, but he was crazy and evil, and sacrificed animals, and maybe even humans for some nefarious purpose. Maybe he thought he was an evil god, and sacrificed to himself because he had no followers. Oh, I’m not ever gonna be in my lab again, and I had made so much progress, and now both galaxies are going to be without my incredible genius, and…”

“Rodney!” Carson and John both yelled, halting his rant.

“What!” Anger now clearing his thoughts for the moment.

“We’re ready for the ultrasound now.” Carson rolled the machine close to the bed. 

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so?” Rodney asked innocently.

John groaned, and hopped up. “Shut up McKay,” he said, smiling indulgently, and helped Rodney onto his stomach. 

“Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Carson grabbed a measuring tape. “It’s…10 centimeters by 10 centimeters. Did it start out this size, Colonel?”

John looked carefully at the mass. “Actually, I think it’s gotten a little bigger.”

“Bigger?” The pillow muffled the indignant cry.

John gave a reassuring squeeze, then resumed caressing Rodney’s arm. “It’ll be okay.”

Ignoring the ‘humph,’ Carson continued with his exam. “It feels like there’s fluid inside. Maybe we’ll see something on the ultrasound after all.” Angling the monitor so both he and John could see, he accepted the bottle of gel from the nurse, and squirted some on Rodney’s back.

“Oh my God, that’s cold? What kind of bedside manner is this, freezing your patients out? Or are you freezing it off? Yes, that’d be great, except for the unbelievable pain.”

“We’re just looking at the thing, Rodney. Oh hey, what’s that?” John pointed to something on the screen.

“That’s his shoulder blade.” 

“Oh.” 

“Although...” Carson looked closer, angling the probe to get a better look. “...there does appear to be something inside.” 

“Where?” John leaned forward, trying to figure out what was on the screen.

Rodney shifted a little, mumbled, “guys?”

“Right there.” Pointing to the screen, Carson outlined what he was seeing.

“Uh, guys?”

“Looks like one of Heightmeyer’s crazy tests to me. How do you see anything in that?” John squinted a little, trying to figure it out. 

“Guys.” A little louder.

“Oh wait, maybe I see it now.” He tilted his head. “Nope. I don’t.”

Pointing again to the screen, “right there. Here’s a head…and a body…and…” He suddenly snatched his hand away. “Oh.”

“What, Carson what’s the…” John broke off as Rodney screamed, and suddenly sat up.

“Oh my God! Oh my God, oh my God.” Rodney wiggled around, trying to see the mass on his back. “It’s moving, I can feel something moving inside that, that, that, whatever it is.” He managed to feel it with his fingers. “Carson, what’s happening?!”

Carson joined John in trying to hold him still. “Rodney, lad, you’re going to have to remain still. Otherwise I can’t figure out what’s going on.”

“Oh, easy for you to say, you don’t have some sort of freaky monster thing growing on your back,” he spit out. 

“Rodney!” Sheppard glared, and pushed him back on the bed. 

“I’m sorry, but it’s starting to feel odd, or hurt, or I don’t know…” he trailed off, frustrated and scared.

Back to slowly stroking Rodney’s arm, John watched as Carson started to pick at the edges of the mass. “Is that doing what I think it is?”

“Aye, it appears to be drying up at the edges, maybe coming off.” He slowly started peeling it up, careful to cause as little pain as possible. As he reached the halfway point, a gush of fluid rushed out.

Just at that point Elizabeth came running into the infirmary. “I’ve finished the translation. It was a lab; but they were studying lab animals. They were developing a device to produce rapidly maturing animal clones. Apparently, it would place pouches on male or female animals in order to incubate them.”

“Okay,” John drawled, “that’s a little weird. But what animals were they testing?”

“Something called an oleng. Not sure what that is, though.”

Carson looked up from the completely detached mass he held in his hands. “I know what it is.”

Finally allowed to sit back up, Rodney gasped, and grabbed the bundle from him. Holding it to his chest, he cooed and hummed to it until he noticed the other three had stopped talking and were looking at him. Opening his hands, he held up the tiny creature for them to see. “It’s a cat.”


End file.
